Category: Projects

Schools in Palestine suffer from a severe lack of cultural extra-curricular activities or creative subjects in school curricula, such as various types of arts like writing, drawing, drama, dancing, music, and performing arts in general. As a result, the school becomes a place that focuses mostly on a rigid curriculum and turns into an inactive structure unable to identify, much less foster, students’ potential. Schools therefore miss many chances to develop students’ talents and to explore their inner desires.
In this respect, we work with children, teachers and parents in holistic programs, including I. Promote Reading in Schools, II. Book Clubs, III. Storytelling Activities Across Palestine, IV. Almojawareh: Publishing new books series for teenagers, V. School field trips: “Dawsha bel Warsha”

This program works with schools where the trainers initiate a Story Group, which aims to promote the habit of reading among students, encouraging them to adopt continuous free reading, and developing critical and creative skills by discussing the contents of the book. Through this project, PWW organizes reading promotion activities in schools in different areas of Palestine. This project depends on reading and creative writing workshops, opening communication bridges between the schools’ students and authors. In addition, we use our relations with local publishers to develop mobile libraries in each school we work with. We coordinate annually with the Ministry of Education and local publishers to implement this program successfully.
Project Objectives
 Promote creative reading and critical thinking among youth as well as motivating them to enjoy reading as a regular habit.
 Activate school and public libraries by encouraging youth to interact with experienced writers in order to transfer knowledge and expertise.
 Develop youth’s ability to express themselves by urging them to shed feelings of fear, norms, and tradition.
 Provide tool to create dialogue within a cultural framework. Groups discuss texts and host writers who facilitate conversation, listening, and discussion among the students based on logical arguments. They further aim to foster mutual respect between the students.
Project Target Group: 10th and 11th grade students at female and male government schools.

The Book Club is a great opportunity for emerging writers to access great books and a community of other writers with whom to share the experience of reading and discussion. We have a selection of books to share with book club chapters, which generally are comprised of 5-10 readers. We provide the books and, if a chapter prefers, we also share discussion questions and can even provide a moderator to help facilitate discussion. A chapter can be part of a workshop, or simply a group of interested readers.

Through the project “An Hour of Stories, “ PWW offers interactive storytelling activities. This is one of the main ways that the workshop promotes reading, giving opportunities for the largest number of children to enjoy an hour with stories, which is punctuated with puppet shows, singing, and dancing. We arrange storytelling with cultural centers, preschools and libraries in villages, camps and cities all over Palestine.